Live: Superchunk with OFF! & Lemuria @ House Of Vans 7.14.11

I never skated, not have I had any inclination to, but it is hard to ignore the Vans presence, what with the Warped Tour and all. I've not been to one of those in the better part of a decade and looking at the lineup, I've barely heard (I'm sure blessedly) of any of the bands and the ones I have heard of I feel pretty sorry for. That said, Vans are certainly atoning for their sins with the House Of Vans out there in Brooklyn.

I poo-pooed the whole thing above and beyond the free Superchunk factor, but that alone was enough to get me to take the day off and get there at 5 to ensure entry. Dave and Eric showed up for the last hour or so and we were in fairly quickly, entering a good sized warehouse space with a decent PA and a huge backyard with free beer and pizza. WTF! While I was (and am) fairly incredulous about the whole thing, I got over it once the free beer started flowing.

We posted up out back for Lemuria, who sounded decent from outside, although I've heard varying opinions of the sound inside. I've seen enough Lemuria shows to know that there is a lot of relative pitch exercised in the franchise, so I'll reserve judgement as when I did make it in for OFF! it sounded pretty decent. Of course that's a relative thing, as the grinding Black Flag-gery that is OFF! is a special kind of ear candy. Morris is charismatic as hell for the little bedreaded old man that he is, taking neither shit not shorts over their short set. It's always over way too soon, but I really think that's a good thing.

The wealth of free beer meant there was ample for giving to cute girls up front and for throwing on pesty Superchunk uber-nerds from NJ who don't know how to pogo in one place. Superchunk on nine cups of Heineken Light is a special kind of experience, but one I recommend. Jim the drummer showed up and it was on. Opening with Slack Motherfucker, the kids romped through a set heavy on the Strings reissue before getting Morris out for a romp through Gimme, Gimme, Gimme and Where Eagles Dare. Good times, maybe the best time I've had all year. I sure needed it and the company was damn good. As was the price. I think I'm going to buy me a pair of those Vans.

Kudos to House Of Vans for a great time in a well-run space that got me home by 11:15. You can damn well guarantee I'll be there next week for Fucked Up and Cro-mags. Wonder if the beer will be free at that one.

R

Cheap Girls/Lemuria split 7"

In the midst of a bleak late winter in Gotham City, it was a pleasure to get a fat mailer of the punk rock from the good folk of Southern Living. While this wasn't inside, in popping over to the No Idea web presence, the pot was sweetened considerably by news of this little bit of vinyl delight.

Now Lemuria I like generally, but Cheap Girls I like a whole big bunch. As my god is a cruel god, there is but one Cheap Girls track here, paired with two new tracks from Lemuria. The CG track is the great mix of Lemonheads and Gin Blossoms you've come to expect from the Lansing threesome. Called Pure Hate, it might be accused of being a wee bit long, but its still pretty damn good. The Lemuria tracks are sparkly little gems, especially Lemons. The other track is a little saccharine and deals with falling in love with a single mother. I'm not going to play it every day, but it's a fair shake better than a lot of stuff, even if there appears to be xylophone on the track. Check out their new full-length Pebble.

I'd like to see some dates with Lemuria and Cheap Girls behind this little slab of delight. With Cheap Girls out with the nightmare that is Against Me!, I'm not sure when this might could happen, but keep tabs at No Idea HQ here and grab a copy of this split while you're there. The Lemuria web-presence is here. Cheap Girls is here. Enjoy!

R

Lemuria - Pebble

Personally, it's pretty staggering to me that it was five years ago now that I got the split with Kind Of Like Spitting and got bitten by the Lemuria bug. The Buffalo unit has switched bass players in recent history and made the curious move of signing with new school hardcore enclave Bridge Nine, but little has changed in the Lemuria formula. It's still a post-Velocity Girl meets Breeders vibe, in the time-honored power trio format with mostly female vocals, although the drummer sings a fair bit.

Pebble is only their second formal full-length, but there has been a raft of EP and single releases in the three years since their Asian Man debut. Pebble was produced by the estimable J. Robbins at his Magpie Cage Studios in charming Baltimore, lending just the right amount of spit and polish (as well as some auto-tune, methinks) to the proceedings to make one hell of a record. Lemuria should be well proud of themselves. I'd put Pebble up there with P.S. Eliot and my beloved Little Lungs. You should put it in your earhole(s). Here's a link to facilitate.

R

Little Lungs - Hoist Me Up

Regular JS-NYC readers (this means you, Mom) may recall my being kinda lukewarm about Little Lungs, then catching feelings for them pretty hard after one of their live shows. Well, after only a half-year of slacking, I managed to come up with a copy of their record. Yowza! I am now officially all about Little Lungs. Split between Jersey and Brooklyn, the trio really does a great job of catching their lightning in a bottle on Hoist Me Up. It's a great recording, especially with the vocals. Neither Angie nor Jackie is in any danger of being mistaken for Mahalia Jackson, but they are great to listen to, alone or together. There's a healthy dose of Lemuria / Potboiler end of the If You Make It vibe about the proceedings, as well as some early 90s North Carolina. Rarely is this a bad thing, and Little Lungs do no injustice to the pairing. I can't say enough good things about Little Lungs or Hoist Me Up. Buy it immediately from the good folk of Salinas Records. Here's a link.

R

Live: Insubordination Fest - day two

Day two (or three, if you count the Thursday pre-show) is always the marathon day at Insubordination Fest. Things start early and go late. It's at these junctures where one finds how one can handle the permissive PBR promotions Sonar always drums up for the affair. Having unwisely opted for much wine with Keith the night before, I was more than a little bit damaged by the time I started the day.

Having missed the mighty Banner Pilot the night before, there was no way I was going to catch an o-fer and miss Gateway District. BP mastermind Nate Ganglehoff also tenures in the band, along with Half-Pint from Rivethead/Dear Landlord, Maren from the Soviettes and Carrie from The Salteens. Things were a little shaky, but I thought they were pretty great, even if they played in front of a half-filled room. I haven't had a chance to listen to their new full-length on It's Alive, but it sounds like it's worth checking out. Review soon!

Lemuria were up next. It was the last date of their tour, but the kids hardly mailed it in. Only a twenty minute set, but a damn good one. I didn't get a chance to speak to them to see what the next move is for the crew, as the last record's been out for a bit, but I trust there will be new material soon. I caught the end of the Full Of Fancy set after they wrapped. They are a nice match with the Lemuria. I like those kids more and more. The ladies can sing and the band is tight. I need to get me that record soon.

More Dear Landlord was next. Those guys are so great. Buy the DL records as well as all their other/previous bands records immediately. Sell a Vampire Weekend record or something. They played pretty much all their songs, and had Carrie from Gateway District come out and sing the cover from Dream Homes to sweeten the pot further. So good. The gents are real busy, so go out of your way and see them as soon/much as possible while you can.

I killed time before The Measure (SA) set by catching part of Wimpy from The Queers solo set. He was backed by The Secretions, but that wasn't enough to sway me into listening to more than a song or two. Guess I'm not a Queers fan. So sue me. The Measure were good, though. The guitar player that needs to get canned was still pretty annoying, and evidently drunk and/or on pills, but the rest of the band stepped up nicely. At one point, Drunk stupid tattoo guy mentioned off-handedly that the band wouldn't be playing much while Lauren dealt with some personal issues. Here's hoping that they are handled swiftly and healthily and perhaps revolve around some staffing changes in the Measure (SA) franchise.

Had some time to kill after, so I grabbed an iced coffee and an issue of Go Metric! and relaxed a bit before catching The Arrivals. I hadn't ever intentionally seen The Arrivals and was damn anxious to rectify the situation. Met some lovely female Fastbacks fans beforehand and chatted while the gents set up, then proceeded to lose my shit for the duration of their far-too-short set. The sheer barrage of hits, combined with the knee-weakeningly lovely Hallie Unlovable dancing next to me, made for the set of IF for this guy. I hear that there may be some East Coast shows toward the end of the summer, which makes this shut-in way happy. Great songs, great people. Buy them drinks.

I caught a bit of The Adorkables afterward, but opted for a drink and some sun before local heroes Dead Mechanical took the stage. No lineup changes since the last time I saw them, which is somewhat notable. The newest 12" on Toxic Pop is still getting shine. If you like the first couple of Jawbreaker records, the gents are well worth checking out. They seemed to get a local of local and out-of-town love. Here's hoping they get back up to NYC real soon. I saw a bit of The Parasites beforehand. They sounded decent, but I think I prefer Dave backed by Ergs.

Got back to the main room to see the last couple minutes of The Methadones levelling the room with their pop-punk chestnuts. If you liked Danny's tenure in the Screeching Weasel, you would do well to snap their stuff up post-haste. If you're unfamiliar, you could do a lot worse to start than the split EP with The Copyrights. Toys That Kill were up next, and awesome. They are another band I never had seen live. I had hoped that I wouldn't be as disappointed as I was with Underground Railroad To Candyland and luckily I wasn't. Good, fast, hooky punk rock that had all the old heads in the crowd way happy. I though TTK were no longer a band, but if you can see them in this day and age, I assure you that you should.

TTK were the last band of Insubordination Fest for this asshole, as there was a pretty big void in stuff I wanted to hear and it was easily three hours before Dillinger were going on, so I bailed to be fresh for rehearsal next day. I'm sure D4 were great, but I've seen a lot of them. Even with my not seeing any of the headliners and missing Banner Pilot, Insubordination Fest 2009 was a great time. I can't see not going again next year.

R

Live: Lemuria, Gordon Gano's Army, Cheeky at Death By Audio 11.15.8

Let me derail this from the start and say how pissed I am that I missed the Thorns Of Life show. I heard it was pretty bananas. But really, what the fuck is deal with Hiesel posting info about their shows on the front page of the fucking Alternative Press site. I hope that this isn't some intentional anti-press promo stunt. 

In poking around on Jessica Hopper's blog for more dirt I found this curious post from 12/13 about a Lifter Puller project? Please forward all dirt to me immediately. The same for Thorns Of Life. I'll do the same unless the information is forwarded in confidence.

Ok, then. So I go to Death By Audio and finally blunder my way in. I'm not sure how above board the shows are there. They are pretty gung-ho about shooing people away from the front of the building and keeping things under the radar. I noticed a couple cruisers passing on my way home, so maybe there's a gentleperson's agreement between the two. Either way, they seem to start on time, as I got there at 9:30 and had already missed Get Bent and Slingshot Dakota, who evidently replaced the road-worn Bridge and Tunnel. Cheeky were setting up on the floor as I staked out real estate. I admire the Born Against aesthetic, but when you are a band mostly comprised of diminutive ladies, it does make for a bummer presentation-wise. 

So there was a pretty long wait before Cheeky jumped off. There sure was a lot of smoking (tobacco) in the back room. Like Carolina shows at the Brewery smoky. Yowza. When they did it was fun, but I wouldn't go so far as to say good. Granted there were PA issues and amps failing, so it wasn't all their fault. Either way, they seem to be decent folk and share Angie from Little Lungs, so maybe it was just a bad night.

There was also the small matter of none of the bands having Blake Schwarzenbach in their ranks, but Gordon Gano's Army were pretty damn great. I'm pretty sure Alex from Lemuria and Art Of The Underground was playing drums for them, but I'm not sure if that's a permanent thing. Either way, they did us the solid of actually using the stage and sounded like a slower UK Chixdiggit on the hookier stuff like First Song. That can't really be a bad thing. The crowd was pretty into them, especially an odd gang of young ladies who were hell-bent on attracting a lot of attention to themselves. If it was for the band's benefit, it seems like went unheeded, as GGA handled their business without a hint of distraction. You can get the full-length from Art Of The Underground here. When I get a copy, I'll get a review up stat. They are in the States for five more days. The dates are here. I'd see them if you could.

Lemuria closed out the night. Evidently Sheena's moved to Queens. We'll see how that works out, especially as they have been spending a hell of a lot of time on the road behind Get Better. It shows live, as the band brings it pretty seriously. Sheena's dual Music Man heads up the gear dork factor. She's a great guitar player, not in a Marnie Stern kind of way, but she drives that band with authority. Her rhythm section is no joke either. Alex and Jason are lock-tight and the band is authoritatively together to the point where various pieces of equipement crapped out over the course of the set and there wasn't a hiccup. It extended all the way to the lead vocals. Whenever Sheena had a mike crap out or her voice lagged in PA, the crowd was more than willing to take the reins and finish an entire verse or chorus as needed. The kids got kind of frisky towards the end of the set, which only asserts that pits at indie-rock shows are really the arena of amateurs and poseurs, but all in all a great evening, even if it wasn't the Thorns Of Life show.

R